Posts Tagged ‘Ichud Haleumi’

That was what we were promised – “one united religious political party.” It did not last too long. The several Orthodox Zionist parties tried to build one “Habayit Hayehudi” by a very avant-garde system. Everyone would agree to disband his private political party, and well-known Orthodox Zionist community leaders would form a committee to choose the Knesset candidates for a unified Orthodox party. Beautiful idea!

The first step was taken. All of the parties were disbanded. The committee of Orthodox Zionist leaders met and decided. The people were asked to vote by computer for their new leaders, but the vote would be just advisory and the committee would make the actual decision about which candidates should appear on the party list. The committee would only “take into consideration” the popular vote. In reality, the popular vote was ignored and a new relatively unknown leader, Rabbi Professor Daniel Hershkowitz, was chosen to head the new party.

This was Orthodox Zionism’s big chance. Eight to 10 Knesset seats or more were predicted for this unified party. Orthodox Jews would all return from supporting non-religious parties (except, of course, for Feiglin) and we would be able to exert a great deal of influence. Mashiach must have been on his way because at least one group of Orthodox Jews was about to begin working together.

As you can imagine, it did not last long. Despite Bibi’s trick to stop Feiglin from receiving a secure spot on the Likud’s candidate list, Feiglin did not understand that the non-religious did not want him in their party. He seems to have decided to remain in the Likud and give this non-religious party all of the votes of his religious supporters.

It also seems that the public committee that was to choose unified Orthodox leaders forgot about inflated egos. Among the first to go was Effi Eitam, who did not receive a realistic spot on the new list, so he took his mandate and the 12- million-shekel government campaign allocation and presented it to the Likud. Now many more religious voters will be voting for the non-religious Likud Party. Eitam did not receive a seat for his gift, but rather explained that he will wait until the next elections.

Beni Ayalon, the former chairman of the Moledet Party and the chairman of the Knesset faction of the Ichud Haleumi and Mafdal, who also did not receive a realistic spot, decided to reincarnate his previous party and he quit the Bayit Hayehudi party. Uri Ariel, the chairman of Moledet, despite receiving the third slot in the Bayit Hayehudi list, also announced that he would return to Ichud Haleumi.